Weekend Box Office Report: Nobody Won This Boring Weekend

Summer is officially over, September is here, and the movies stink. While the big releases and heavy-hitters of the fall movie season make the festival rounds or rev up their marketing campaigns, audiences have to tough it out and wade through a lot of not-so-good movies. Welcome to September. It’s like this every year. Get ready for an excruciating month at the movies and at the box office.

Film

Weekend

Per Screen

1

War Room

$9,300,000 (-18%)

$6,094

$124,613,000

2

Straight Outta Compton

$9,000,000 (-31%)

$2,909

$147,935,000

3

A Walk in the Woods

$7,700,000

$3,929

$9,732,000

4

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation

$7,500,000 (-8%)

$2,633

$180,736,000

5

The Transporter Refueled

$6,500,000

$1,893

$6,500,000

6

No Escape

$5,000,000 (-38%)

$1,464

$18,001,000

7

The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

$3,600,000 (-19%)

$1,113

$39,534,000

8

Sinister 2

$3,200,000 (-31%)

$1,143

$23,539,000

9

Inside Out

$3,100,000 (+130%)

$1,045

$348,173,000

10

Ant-Man

$2,800,000 (-9%)

$1,834

$173,102,000

Of the two new releases of the week, one fared far better than the other despite nearly identical box office. The Transporter Refueled bombed with $6 million and A Walk in the Woods did pretty much all right with $7 million. That’s the difference a budget and expectations make. The low-key, festival dramedy starring two aging legends made the youth-sowing action reboot look bad. September!

The dearth of anything truly exciting also allowed the faith-based drama War Room to slip into the top spot, toppling Straight Outta Compton’s lengthy reign as king of the top 10. The tiny percentage drop suggests that War Room may have legs and could continue to perform well throughout September. For a movie of this style and niche, $40-50 million is a huge gross and it wouldn’t surprise us at all to see it get there. Meanwhile, Straight Outta Compton will continue to hang around for a few more weeks, using the lack of direct competition to reach $180 million or so before bowing out. September!

The lack of anything new and exciting also benefited a few older films. Inside Out roared back into the top 10, ensuring a $350 million gross (and leaving Minions in the dust). Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation only dropped an astonishing eight percent, bringing its grand total to $180 million and guaranteeing a final gross of $200 million-plus. Nothing new will stand in its way and audiences will go to it simply because it’s the last big summer movie still playing around the nation. September!

The rest of the top 10 was home to orphans, movies that have all-but-ended their runs and simply have nowhere to go. The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Sinister 2 and No Escape aren’t going to turn into hits now that September is here, but at least they get to scrape a few extra pennies together. At least this slowness will prevent them from getting instantly kicked to the curb like mid-summer flops.